


Life Finds A Way

by iamnotninja



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Brainwashing, Emotional Manipulation, Flashbacks, Gardening, Imprisonment, M/M, Plants, Post-Movie: Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018), Recovery, Sad, Secret Relationship, Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-25
Updated: 2018-06-06
Packaged: 2019-05-13 09:37:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14746364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamnotninja/pseuds/iamnotninja
Summary: Post-Uprising, Hermann starts bringing plants to Newt's cell. *I added the rape/non-con warning because of some stuff the Precursors do with Newt's body.1/12/19: This is on hiatus until I finish Ersatz.





	1. In Which Hearts Are Healed and Broken

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote a cute sad thing for someone on tumblr and then had to make it real. the original thing i wrote was "after uprising hermann is trying to save newt and even though he can't take him out of his restraints or talk about their relationship, he keeps a little pot down there that he waters every time he visits. and newt starts to watch the little seedlings as they come up and it reminds him that even itty bitty little plants can, like, bust through concrete and overcome absurd odds."
> 
> this is that, but longer and sadder.

Hermann had thought, had _hoped_ , that the nightmares would lessen over time. In the bleak, uncertain weeks after the Breach had been closed, he had told himself that it would get better, that eventually his dreams would stop being an endless cacophony of clicking and rasping screams and creatures with too many eyes prying his head open with their claws.

They hadn't, but as he looked down at Newton Geiszler's restrained, heaving form, he realized how lucky he'd been.

\----

There had been a night, like many nights, when he again woke with a gasp, covered in sweat. He blinked furiously, trying to erase the crackling bolts of blue that flickered across his vision. Hermann had already tried and given up on a host of sleep aids: chamomile, breathing exercises, tryptophan. Instead, he splashed some cold water on his face, drew on a shabby robe, and made his way to the lab.

With the Breach closed, PPDC had yet to figure out what to do with itself, and the only official orders to the Shatterdome had been to stay put and await further instruction. There had been no need for Hermann to visit the lab for several days. He hadn't seen Newton in over a week, avoiding him in sharp contrast to the voice inside which desperately pleaded with him to talk with the only other human in the world who could understand.

As Hermann had neared the double doors to K-Sci, he heard a crash from within followed by a frustrated yell and several more metallic crashes. Hermann broke into a run and pushed through the doors, his hand reaching for the alarm on the wall.

He remembers Newton's eyes best. The lost, puppy-dog eyes, brimming with tears as Newton had stood there, trembling. A tray of kaiju chunks was overturned on the floor, as were two bins of surgical instruments.

"Newton, what-" Hermann broke the question off. There was no reason to ask what was wrong when Hermann knew exactly what it was, to have one's mind teeming with slithering, poisonous images.

Newt swiped an arm across his face, the filthy shirt smearing away tears. He sniffed once, then put his hands on his hips and tried to smile.

"Hey man, sorry about this. You know how biologists get, what with the guts and the toxins and the nonstop decay and death. It's funny how you go into a field expecting to study life and growth and before you know it you're cutting up putrid alien organs so you can show a bunch of jingoists how to inflict maximum destruction."

"Newton," Hermann said softly. He stepped closer to Newt, picking his way through the gobbets of flesh scattered between them. The crooked, false smile on Newt's face faltered. He looked down at the floor.

"It's the nightmares, isn't it?" Hermann whispered. He shifted awkwardly, wanting to brush away the tear clinging to Newt's eyelashes. Drifting had made Hermann realize something about himself, something about Newton, that he'd kept tucked away for almost ten years. The weight of it was frightening.

 Newt sniffed again, still looking at the floor.

"I have them too, Newton."

Newt looked up at him, eyes overbright.

"It's like..." Newt croaked. He cleared his throat and tried again. "It's like something's trying to get in my head every time I close my eyes. I keep seeing their faces."

"How long since you slept?"

"Fuck, I don't know," he squinted and looked up at the ceiling. "I wanna say forty, forty-one hours? I got, like, twenty minutes in before that." He looked at Hermann and shrugged. "Doc prescribed some trazodone, but I haven't taken it. I don't..."

"You don't want to be trapped in the dream," Hermann finished, nodding his head vigorously. He'd been handed a similar prescription when he'd visited the med lab.

Newt chuckled. "I forgot," he tapped his head. "You've been in here. Sorry for exposing you to that shit show."

"Yes, well, I suppose the same can be said of you and my head."

Hermann shifted again, his leg uncomfortable.

"Newton, as I'm unable to sleep I'm glad to talk, but might we move somewhere I can sit? Somewhere..." he looked down at the hunks of kaiju flesh, "-less soaked in vile fluids?"

"We could go to my r-"

" _Not_ your room as I doubt it is any less wretched than this laboratory."

Newt laughed again, and Hermann's mouth quirked in a small grin. It was rewarding to coax Newton into a state of cheer. He felt emboldened.

"I have a bottle of Malbec in my room, as long as we're of the understanding that your shoes are to be taken off and left _outside_. I won't have you traipsing your muck all over my living quarters."

Newt grinned. He stuck his foot out and used his boot to push a glob of kaiju along the floor, leaving a disgusting, viscous smear in its wake. "No shoes, got it. Your room it is."

They turned to exit the room. As they did, Hermann felt Newt's arm snake around his waist and his small, solid body press against Hermann's side.

"Thanks," Newt whispered.

\----

"Doctor Gottlieb, what can I do for you?"

Hermann started and turned away from Newton's cell. Jake Pentecost leaned against the door of the guard station, looking as exhausted as Hermann felt.

"I was hoping to get an update on Newton's condition. No one's been able to tell me anything beyond the fact that he's been 'detained,' and frankly, that's hardly a medical diagnosis. They said you were down here with-" Hermann looked over at the slumped form "-with him."

"Not with him, Doctor. Watching him, trying to figure out what the bloody hell he is."

Hermann straightened to his full height and peered down at the ranger.

"He is Doctor Newton Geiszler, and his work under your father saved the entire wo-"

"And his actions over the past few days almost bloody ended it!" Pentecost snapped. "Do not forget the bodies we've laid to rest today, Doctor Gottlieb, and do _not_ forget who is responsible for them."

Hermann sighed and raised his hand in a placating gesture.

"Forgive me, Ranger Pentecost. Let us never slight the dead. I only mean to say that I wish to be involved with Doctor Geiszler's... care and keeping. I know the man quite well, and if given access I may be able to-" he swallowed nervously, "-to ensure we make full use of his presence."

Jake leaned off the doorway and approached Hermann. He rested a heavy hand on Hermann's soldier.

"You're talking like he's still in there, Doctor. I don't think he is. Before you got here, there were some pretty frightening things coming out of his mouth. I recommend you watch the tape before going in there."

Hermann's heart fluttered.

"You mean you'll let me work with- work on Doctor Geiszler?" He clenched his cane with white-knuckled hands.

"Under one condition, that you look me in the eye, right here, right now, and tell me you understand that there's probably no one left to save in there."

Hermann's lips pressed firmly together. He wanted to scream, to strike this upstart little child across the face. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, looking straight into Jake's dark eyes.

"I understand that it is statistically possible that Doctor Geiszler is past saving, but it will take a thorough investigation to determine if that's the case."

Jake sighed and patted Hermann's shoulder heavily.

"I'll take what I can get. Cameras stay on at all times. If they go off, even for a second, I'll revoke your access. Understood?"

Hermann nodded. He'd expected as much.

Jake withdrew his hand and turned to leave. As he walked into the hall, without looking back, he said, "Don't forget to watch the tape."

\----

Hermann felt flushed, and he didn't know if it was from the wine or from his proximity to Newt. They had started drinking with Hermann sitting on his bed and Newt sitting backwards on Hermann's desk chair. They had been talking about everything _but_ the dreams and the Drift, dancing around the topics like they were hot coals. After toasting Pentecost, Hansen, the Wei Tangs, and the Kaidonovskys for a third time, Newt said, "Fuck it," and knocked back the rest of the glass. He'd awkwardly disentangled himself from the chair and flopped down on the bed next to Hermann.

"We gonna talk about this, dude?"

Hermann choked on the sip he was taking. He coughed, and Newt put a hand on his back, rubbing it softly.

"About- about the dreams, you mean?" Newt's hand was warm, but it still gave him goosebumps.

"Yeah, well, no," Newt removed his hand and pulled off his glasses. He tried to clean them on his grubby shirt. As this only served to make the glasses dirtier, Hermann plucked them from Newt's hand. He set his wine down on the desk and drew open a drawer, removing a handkerchief. His hands trembled, and he pointedly looked at the glasses as he cleaned them.

"We should definitely, _definitely_ , talk about those at some point, because we might both be on the verge of total psychotic breakdowns, but I meant about us. About the Drift."

Hermann continued to scrub at the lenses, despite their now spotless appearance. Newt put his hand down over Hermann's, stopping him. Hermann looked up at Newt, feeling like a child who had been caught somewhere he shouldn't be. Newt's hand- _Newt's_ hand released his and lifted up to touch Hermann's cheek.

"I'd really like to kiss you, Herms," Newt was red, and his other hand clenched the bedspread, twisting the fabric around it.

"I-" Hermann felt like he should deny everything, draw the conversation to something safer, but he was tired of doing what he should. "Yes, well, I suppose you should kiss me then, Newton."

"Really? That was easy." Newt released the bedspread and raised that hand up to Hermann's other cheek, softly cupping his face. "So much for the stiff upper lip."

Hermann growled and pulled Newt by his shirt, bringing their lips together in a soft, sudden kiss. Newt's thumb brushed across his cheekbone. Hermann shivered as Newt deepened the kiss, opening his mouth and darting his tongue across Hermann's bottom lip. With that, Hermann felt all his hesitation and uncertainty dissolve. His hands were at Newt's waist, tugging the shirt out of his pants and running his fingers eagerly across Newt's stomach and sides. He felt the hair running from Newt's navel down to the top of his pants and hesitated.

Newt moved his mouth to Hermann's ear and whispered hoarsely, "Don't stop. Don't you dare fucking stop, you sexy son of a bitch."

\---

Hermann paused the video with a shaking finger. Per Jake's instruction, he'd watched the recording of their interaction immediately. Tears stung his eyes. Hearing that voice tear its way out of Newt's throat hurt his heart. He brushed his fingers against the bruises on his throat, reminding himself how far gone Newt had seemed in the Shao lab before Hermann had rubbed his thumb over the hands choking the life out of him. Newt had come back to himself, Hermann was sure of it. It was only for a moment, but Hermann had seem the same, lost eyes he'd looked into back in K-Sci.

He turned off the video monitor and looked at Newt's cell. His heart jumped as he saw Newt staring back at him from the dimly lit cell. Hermann stared back, heart thudding. He took a deep breath and waited, observing Newt's body language. He realized Newt wasn't blinking and shuddered.

When Hermann finally approached the door to the cell, Newt still hadn't blinked. He was slumped forward in the chair, leaning against the restraints at his chest and wrists. He looked up, a grin spreading across his face.

"Heyyyyy Herms," he said in a lilting voice. "What's up?"

Hermann ignored him and sat in the chair in front of Newt. He pulled a slim recorder from his coat pocket and switched it on.

"It is December the first, 2035. This is Doctor Hermann Gottlieb beginning session one with Doctor Newton Geiszler-"

"So rude, Hermann! You're not even going to say hello to lil old Newt?"

"Doctor Geiszler has demonstrated a lack of semi-autonomic bodily functions, including blinking. By my watch it has been at least five minutes since Doctor Geiszler last closed his eyes, but he has yet to show any discomfort."

"And you still have your shoes on! Why Hermann, I'm shocked!"

Hermann set the recorder on the arm of the chair and leaned forward.

"Newton, we're going to figure this out. I know you're still in there." He ran his fingers over Newt's hand, looking into his eyes for any hint of the man he'd loved. Newt blinked.

"Herms? Herms, you've got to help me. I didn't mean for any of this to happen, I swear to God!"

Hermann fell to his knees in front of Newt, looking up into his frantic eyes.

"Newton, thank God! I knew you were in there, just hang on for a little longer."

"Hermann, I have to tell you something, come here, I can't let the cameras see it, can't let PPDC know." Hermann brought his face up to Newt's. He shivered as Newt's lips brushed against his ear. Newt moaned, then hissed.

"Don't you dare fucking stop, you sexy son of a bitch."

Hermann jerked his head away, hearing Newt's teeth click where his ear had been a second before. He looked up at Newt's as the grin spread across his face. Newt moaned again and bucked his hips against the restraints.

"Oh fuck, Herms, oh fuck, your hands," Newt crooned. "I need them, need to feel them on my cock, need to feel you all over me."

Hermann stood up and backed away, grabbing the recording device from the armrest. He noted with horror that Newt had an erection.

"Fuck, call me darling again, call me that, need to hear your voice so I can-"

Newt's hips twitched, and he let out a cry as he came. He never blinked, never looked away from Hermann, and never stopped smiling that insane poisonous smile. Hermann had reached the door. As he pulled it open, he heard Newt sing, "Aw, somebody's cryyyyyiiiing."

Hermann turned to look, and Newt waggled his finger. "Oh no, Herms, that's not for you to see. You'll have to trust me."

The door slammed shut, cutting off Newt's ranting. Hermann pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes clenched shut.


	2. In Which Minds Vacate

The sex had been frantic, almost vicious. Hermann had clung to Newt with all the strength he had as the other man rode him to hell and back over and over, his cock leaking onto Hermann's stomach, his fingers twisted into Hermann's hair. It became normal, in the middle of the night, for one of them to wake to the other, hard and desperate.

"Fuck, I'm so fucking sorry, Hermann, but make them go away, please God, make them go away."

And Hermann would turn over and press his lips to Newt's and reach his hand down to the other's cock, grasping it firmly.

"It's ok, Newton, I'm here, I'm with you."

There were times when Hermann would wake, drenched in cold sweat, and turn to reach for Newt to find him gone. It wasn't often, and eventually Newt reappeared, sliding back under the sheets and wrapping Hermann tightly in his arms.

"I'm sorry," he whispered one night, pressing his face into Hermann's chest. "I'm so sorry that I'm not here."

"You are, darling," Hermann murmured, Newt's presence already lulling him back into sleep. "You're right here."

\----

It was hard, looking back. Hermann analyzed every moment he could remember, trying to find some sign, some hint, of what was happening. The truth of it was, he had been so desperately relieved to find solace in Newt's arms that he had overlooked so many things. The dreams had been so horrible for him, and he'd never spared a second to think how much worse it must have been for Newt, having Drifted with the Precursors twice.

Over the past few months, Hermann had tried so many different ways to bring Newt back. They had all failed, and he never saw a glimpse of the real Newt.

First was his attempt at a kaiju-based kind of chelation therapy. He'd thought Newt's extended contact with kaiju tissue had resulted in some kind of chemical build-up that acted as a conductor for the Precursors' connection. Developing a binding agent for all the possible substances had taken two months. Hermann had been there for every session, holding Newt's head through the vomiting, diarrhea, and seizures. In the end, all it had resulted in was kidney failure, leading to an emergency nephrectomy.

After that, Hermann had turned to electroconvulsive therapy, still convinced there was a physical reason for the Precursor's adherence to Newt, something coating his neurons, something he could burn away with bolts of lightning.  It was hard to be there, to be the one slipping the mouthguard between Newt's lips. He couldn't touch him during the procedure, but he stayed in the room, watching Newt's body twitch as the currents ran through it. He toed the line, ethically, knowing no one in the PPDC would stop him. Just a little more, just a little more, just a bit more had to be the key... but it didn't work.

Eventually Jake told him the money wasn't there anymore. He couldn't requisition equipment or experts through the PPDC. Hermann would have sold everything he had, but there was nothing to sell beyond books that nobody wanted. Instead he sold his time, jumping across continents giving half-hearted lectures, all the time torn between his guilt at being away from Newt and his much more repulsive relief at being away from the thing that spoke through Newt.

\----

Hermann gasped as Newt dragged his nails down his back, leaving white hot lines of pleasure. His eyes rolled back into his head, hips rocking into Newt's in obscene oscillation. Newt bit Hermann's neck and reached his hand down to take both their cocks in his hand. He stroked upward roughly, the callouses on his palm a delicious counterpoint to the velvety smoothness of his shaft as it slid against Hermann's.

"God," Hermann gasped. "Newton, hold on, slow down." He pulled Newt's face away from his neck and pressed their foreheads together. "We have time, darling," he whispered.

Newt groaned, a sound enlaced with desire and grief. He pressed his face against Hermann's, bringing his hands up to cup Hermann's jaw.

"You don't know that."

Hermann stroked Newt's unkempt hair and said nothing.

\----

He knew it was considered a kind of sad, pathetic kindness that he was allowed to stay, rent-free, in his cramped quarters, despite providing nothing for the PPDC to use. Jake couldn't get him more than that. Hermann spent his own funds constructing a sensory deprivation tank, something that took him three months of research and manual labor, resulting in calloused and aching hands. He'd hoped that, deprived of any external stimuli, the Precursors would confuse Newt's sensorially-deprived state with death and declare his body a useless outpost.

Every time he'd lowered Newt's body, equipped with a feeding tube and catheter, into the tank, they'd put up a show.

"Hermann, don't put me back in there, please, for fuck's sake, don't leave me alone with them!"

But every time, regardless of how long Hermann kept him in the lightless tank, he'd come back up with that heretical grin on his face, taunting him.

He's not sure, but Hermann thinks it was Jake who left the plant in the hall outside of the cell. It was an African violet, nothing special, just a stubby little splotch of green leaves with a sole, fat purple flower sunk down in the center. He put it against the wall in front of Newt, where it sat sadly in the shadow, leaves curling over and browning. Hermann had never been even remotely interested in the life sciences, and the plant had been forgotten as soon as it had been placed in the cell.

He'd come in one day to see Newt, or the-thing-that-was-Newt, staring at the desiccated little thing. It had only been a split second before Newt had turned to look at him with that cool, reptilian glance, but Hermann's heart had clenched. Surely, just for a flash, he'd seen something approximating sorrow. He couldn't be certain it was anything but his own hope(less)ful imagination, but it stuck in his mind like a burr.

"Death comes so easily to this world, doesn't it, Doktor?" Newt-not-Newt asked, as smoothly as oil sliding off a razor.

Hermann leaned against the wall and bent over to scoop up the dead plant. _I'm sorry, little one_. _I could have saved you_. He held the plastic pot, arid and nearly weightless, to his chest as he turned to not-Newt.

"Life always finds a way," he whispered.

\----

Newt's room was filthy, but it was also verdant. Every inch of desk and shelf space was crammed with plants, and the cheap, dim overhead lights had been replaced with grow lights running on a timer. The first night Hermann had slept there he had been amazed when he had been awoken at dawn by the soft, slowly-intensifying glow. He watched the plants as they shifted from dark, indistinguishable shapes into a rainbow of different colored leaves and flowers. Newt's arm wrapped around his waist, pulling Hermann back against his chest.

"Is this how you wake up every morning?" Hermann whispered.

"Mmmm," Newt acceded, nuzzling his scruffy cheeks against the back of Hermann's neck. "When I don't fall asleep in the lab."

Hermann rolled over and caught Newt's lips with his, a soft, brief kiss.

"You were working eighteen hour days at _minimum_ for the past eight months. We both were."

"Myeah," Newt murmured, eyes still closed but mouth pursuing another kiss. Hermann gave it to him, this one slow and deep. Newt's hand slid down to Hermann's hip, fingers tracing his iliac crest. Hermann's cock twitched in anticipation.

"Free time was an extraneous concept."

Newt's fingers slid up and down Hermann's stomach, drawing nonsense patterns into the pale skin.

"I remember. It sucked pretty hard." He half-opened his eyes, looking at Hermann through his dark lashes. "Coincidentally, sucking hard is a skill I pride myself-"

Hermann batted Newt's hand away from his growing erection.

"What I'm saying is why bother?"

"Well I've heard it's extremely pleasurable for whomever is on the receiving end-"

"The _plants_ , you absurd little man, why bother with keeping all these plants?"

Newt blinked. He narrowed his eyes for a moment, like he was struggling to remember something in the distant past.

"Because, um, it was because I knew there would be time for them, eventually, once we won. And as long as I made sure they had light and water, they would keep going. I think- I think it was nice to have a reminder that life was more than just the lab and military personnel and disgusting food. I think?"

"Are you uncertain?"

Newt's eyes flicked away from Hermann's then back again. He smiled.

"I've got you to remind me what life is now, guess the plants have kind of taken a backseat."

Hermann chuckled and wrapped his fingers around Newt's wrist, bringing the other man's hand down to his cock. He leaned forward and kissed Newt, and as the light slowly filled the room, they lost themselves in each other.

\----

The Precursors, it turned out, were completely incapable of understanding any level of pretense or metaphor. Hermann found this out almost by accident. Having exhausted the number of physical treatments he could rationalize as a possible cure, he had turned to more abstract methods. The PPDC counselor, a red-faced buffoon always working too hard to seem approachable and laid-back, had told Hermann that a box of Newt's personal effects were in storage. Hermann had snapped rather viciously when the man suggested exposing Newt to music and films that would remind him of his old life.

"He doesn't have amnesia, you bloated little hand-holder! You think I'm going to play some music, and they're just going to give up and let him be, like some kind of bloody fairy tale? You're barely capable of helping teenagers balance puberty with their training, so I'll thank you very much if you refrain from opening your slack-jawed trap in front of me!"

It was good that he knew almost no one left at the Shatterdome, as he cared far less if strangers looked at him with distrust and dislike. In the end, he had requisitioned the box from PPDC storage, unable to ignore the idea, stupid as it was. The box was relatively small, and when he opened it, all Hermann saw at first was one very tattered leather jacket. The jacket smelled terrible, and it had clearly never been washed properly as entire swathes of it had burned and bubbled from trace amounts of kaiju contamination. Hermann gently folded the jacket and set it aside. Beneath were a dozen books, none of them terribly interesting or unique, and a stuffed DVD/CD case.

Hermann had wheedled Jake into providing him with an outdated monitor and stereo system. The man was terrible at concealing the pity on his face. Hermann wanted to scream and shake the Ranger, _Don't you dare look at me like I'm a broken toy. Don't pretend you know what I'm capable of. I will bring him back._ Instead, he had bowed his head in acquiescence when Jake shook his head at the wad of bills Hermann had proffered in exchange for the electronics.

He started with Star Wars because those were first in the binder. Hermann, being a pop culture neophyte, had puzzled over the first three discs, labelled Episodes I to III, respectively. Someone, presumably Newt, had taken a lighter to the backs of the dvds, rendering them unplayable. That being insufficient, Newt had then scratched "Those who do not know history's mistakes are doomed to repeat them" into the discs. He'd moved on to Episode IV.

At first, when he had rolled the equipment in the room and powered it up, Newt-not-Newt had been eager. When the film started, yellow text crawling up the screen, he had furrowed his brow.

"What is this?"

"A film, a rather old one."

"This isn't your world, this isn't information."

Hermann's fingers clenched the top of his cane. _God, if that pathetic therapist was right I'll have to thank the wretched man._ It hadn't worked. Newt-not-Newt simply turned off, his body unable to turn away from the tv but exhibiting no reactions. He kept the movies going anyway, letting them fill the background of his mind as he continued to reread everything Newt had published over the past twenty-odd years. Occasionally it became more than background noise, and Hermann found himself wrapped up in the stories as they unfolded.

He watched a scene unfurl in a stunning display of crisp white and violent red, watched as a suicide run was attempted and aborted. He thought of Beckett and Mako.

"That's how we're going to win. Not by fighting what we hate, saving what we love," the voice echoed off the walls of the cell, and Hermann felt his eyes grow hot. _The light down here is atrocious._ He blinked furiously until his eyes regained function and looked over at Newt-not-Newt. Impassive, unblinking, corpse-like.

The next day he ventured outside of the base, finding his way to a downtown market where he purchased an orchid. The shopkeeper informed him it was a phalaenopsis. "Very easy, just add three ice cubes once a week, long bloom time." That seemed within his limited horticultural abilities, and he'd remembered one night, post-coitus, when Newt had opined his love for orchids.

\----

Hermann panted, feeling his cock softening inside Newt but not ready to remove himself just yet. He looked up at the person straddling him, the person whose love still confounded him. Newt's eyes were closed and he was biting his bottom lip, hand wrapped around his spent cock, twitching in the aftershocks of his orgasm.

" _Fuck_ , man, I mean of course, that's what we just did, but _fuck_ , Herms, everything goes so quiet with you."

Hermann dragged a finger along the outline of Trespasser, which stretched across Newt's left pectoral in a dazzling show of color and violence.

"Newton, I don't think _quiet_ is something I'll ever associate with you, but I'll take the compliment regardless."

His thigh twinged and he grimaced, patting Newt on the hip to indicate he needed to not have an additional 150 pounds resting on his body. Newt raised himself up and sighed. He stripped the condom off Hermann before tying it off and throwing it at the overflowing waste basket. He then flopped down on the bed next to Hermann. He pointed at one of the plants on his desk.

"Look at that flower spike, man, is that badass or what?"

Invariably, post-sex Newt was prone to non sequiturs. Hermann rolled onto his side and stroked Newt's back.

"Is a cyclical, necessary biological mechanism really qualifiable as 'badass?'' he asked.

Newt, lying on his stomach, turned his head to face Hermann.

"Fuck yeah it is, when it's an orchid!"

Hermann looked at his face, amazed that there could be so much unbridled wonder and enthusiasm in a man with _six_ PhDs.

"Elucidate for a humble mathematician, darling."

Newt flipped himself over with such enthusiasm that he bounced once against the mattress and smacked his head against the wall. Hermann reached for his head, but Newt swatted his hand away.

"Orchids are complete dicks. They're like cats, but cats don't usually up and die on you for no fucking reason. Orchids are needy and sensitive and _obnoxious_ , and if you don't take care of them _just_ right, they don't bloom. They don't even try. Like, they basically give you the middle finger for years at a time until you get the right lighting, the right potting medium, the right amount of goddamn _air_ blowing across their leaves. So when you do get a flower spike it's like you've won. The orchid has given up being a spoiled little brat and conceded that you are a million times better than it is and it better hurry up and show you it's worth all the trouble."

Hermann considered the dark green spear poking up from the cluster of thick leaves.

"How long until it blooms?"

Newt leaned over and peered at the plant.

"I dunno, a month or two? Maybe three? They're slow as fuck."

Hermann sighed and patted Newt on the head.

"I'm sure it'll be lovely."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I own orchids, and they really are little pieces of shit.


End file.
